Four serious kids with unexamined aspirations. A conformist high school with trivial goals. An oblivious town. A society imperiled by human corruption and environmental pollution. The poet Yeats had it right: Things are falling apart; the centre cannot hold; the falcon, unable to hear the falconer's call, flies in a widening gyre. Anarchy-life without unifying commitments-is set loose on Gradgrind, Ohio. Then a teacher brings the kids to the round...